Customs officers of Sha Tau Kok Control Point this morning (September 21) seized from a container for transporting deceased on board an outgoing lorry 600 pieces of central processing unit (CPU) for microcomputers, 600 random access memory (RAM) sticks, and 10 liquid crystal display (LCD) monitors. The total seizure value was about $542,000.
Customs officers found for the first time that offenders made use of a container for transporting deceased as camouflage in smuggling.
A 52-year-old male driver was arrested and charged with attempting to export unmanifested cargo. He will appear in Fanling Magistrates' Courts tomorrow (September 22).
Customs believed that no syndicate activity was involved.
At 8.13am today, Customs officers intercepted a suspicious outgoing lorry, declared to be empty.
Upon X-ray checking by the Mobile X-ray Vehicle Scanning System, the lorry compartment was found to be carrying a container for transporting deceased. Inside was a batch of computer products and some paper money.
"The offender attempted to evade Customs investigation by deploying a rare means of smuggling goods," Divisional Commander (Sha Tau Kok), Mr Mok Shiu-kin, said this afternoon (September 21) at the press conference.
He stressed that the Department would continue to take vigorous enforcement actions against cross-boundary smuggling activities.
Under the Import and Export Ordinance, smuggling is a serious crime. The maximum penalty for the offence is a fine of $2 million and seven years' imprisonment.
Ends/Thursday, September 21, 2006